Anderson’s YA Lit Conference 2018 (part two)

Thank you for coming back to check out part two for my YA Lit Conference post. I didn’t want to make one super long post. If you missed part one, it was posted on Saturday.

After lunch, there was a second breakout session. This time we chose to go to Fantastical Historical Fiction. I admit I’m not generally a huge fan of YA fiction, but I wanted to go to Annie’s panel. And my husband liked The Last Magician and wanted to listen to Lisa again (we saw her last year, too).

This panel was Lisa Maxwell, Joanna Hathaway, Stephanie Hemphill, and Annie Sullivan. Just like the last one, I went and bought more books. Joanna’s wasn’t out yet, so I wasn’t able to get anything from her signed. Dark West is her debut. I really enjoyed this panel and it actually made me want to read more YA historical fiction.

Our choice for the final breakout session of the day was Out Of This World.

This panel was Kass Morgan, Maura Milan, Emily Suvada, and Jason Watz. I actually ended up loving this panel and asked multiple questions. I don’t remember exactly what I asked, but I’ll try my best. For Emily, it was something about how graphic some of her scenes were and if there were any issues with it being YA. And for Kass, I know I asked something about how much input she had for the tv show. My husband liked this panel a lot because he got to ask a question and talk to Jason afterwards about graphic novels. And yes, I bought more books after the panel!

The next keynote was Kody Keplinger.

Kody used a power point for her speech. She shared photos of herself as a child, talked about how she told stories using babies, used art and drawings to tell stories at a young age, and wrote fan fiction with friends. She found her best friend writing fan fiction. She also talked about how she found her sexual identity through storytelling.

The last keynote speaker was Neal Shusterman.

Neal spoke in conversation with Becky Anderson. He talked a lot about his new book, Dry, and the human element of climate change. He said that he and his son started brainstorming while stuck in traffic in LA. One thing that surprised me is that he said he’s insecure as a writer and is always second guessing himself. He talked a lot about his sons and made me tear up more than once. There was a lot about how the water system is political and corrupt. It was such a great way to end the day.

After everything was over, the authors went into the hallway and signed books. I brought some from home and bought a lot there. I was able to have all of these signed.

I will have one more post coming up with just photos of the signed books (the signed pages). Thank you for visiting today!

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Author: confessionsofayareader

I'm Kristi. I'm a wife, mom, and grandma. I have been breeding leopard geckos for ten years. I love to read and have been trying to review more books (the reason for this blog besides wanting to talk about books with everyone). I also love music and going to concerts, mostly punk and pop punk.
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I am a Neal Shusterman super-fan, and I’m geeking out! He visited our school years ago, and he was so gracious and willing to discuss his books with the kids. I read EVERYTHING he writes, and his books fly of my classroom library shelves. I would have loved going to this event!